20

Soviet Dumping

‘I declare, without fear of contradiction, that the
average unemployed man in England, with a wife and
three children, who is in receipt of unemployment pay, is
better off than the average emploved Russian worker.’

This, as a sincere expression of opinion, from a Socialist
source, is eloquent tribute to the higher standard of living
provided by a capitalist State when compared with those
obtaining in the Soviet State.
At the same time it proves that labour costs in Soviet
Russia are exceedingly low and that this enables the Soviets
to disregard the factor of cost of production when dumping
goods abroad.
Attention must also be drawn to the fact that what is
represented officially as the average wage, is in reality the
average of earmimgs; these include overtime in many
industries. The official seventy-seven roubles is therefore
the average earnings of industrial workers only and cannot
be held to apply to the earnings of agricultural workers.
If we calculate the official returns of all average earnings,
i.e. by including the forty-two and forty-three roubles a
month earned by agricultural workers, it is safe to say
roughly that the average monthly earnings of all classes
in Russia are not more than about forty-five or forty-six
roubles a month. For it should be noted that against some
5,000,000 industrial workers there are in Soviet Russia some
50,000,000 agricultural workers.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising to read in
official Soviet publications that the average diet of the
average worker consists mainly of potatoes and black
bread. This meagre and monotonous menu is eked out
with about two Ibs. of meat and three-quarters of a lb.
of fish a month.

Forced Labour
The Soviet system as a whole rests on the principle of
compulsory labour. This was repeatedly emphasised by
Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. The latest
exponent of the theory is Karl Radek, who, arguing in the
columns of the official Izvestya of February 1gth, 1931,